A day for remembering

St John's welcomed us back for the Parish Eucharist this morning, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood on the day itself. Julie's family and friends were all there before me, occupying the four front pews, ready for the baptism of her grandson Tyler. To be able to administer both Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper on this occasion was indeed a welcome privilege. There were over sixty people in the congregation, and afterwards there was a huge choccy cake and bubbly wine to share. In every way it was a chance to give thanks for the years past, and for the blessings of present times and the wonderful friendships that remain here in the heart of Cardiff.

After lunch I made a little pilgrimage to Llandaff Cathedral for Evensong, to remember  with great respect and affection Archbishop Glyn Simon who ordained me. He's buried in the churchyard outside. The choir sang  Herbert Howell's magnificent Collegium Regale setting, which really makes my spine tingle, plus an anthem by Charles Wood. Two Canons officiated at the service and there were another four of us retired clerics in the congregation, content to be on the receiving end. Alan Jenkins was there, like me, remembering his ordination day forty five years ago, same place, same date.

My journey in ministry and mission started here and has come full circle. The desire to commend faith in Christ as universally relevant to all humankind has taken me to many unusual places, each one different in what I learned and was able to offer. That continues in retirement, but no longer with the constraint of being focussed on one place or one group of people, by virtue of one's mandate from a bishop. I need to learn how to discern and use the gift of freedom I now have to offer ministry only as a response to the needs presented, rather than as a duty to which I am committed, as when I was a full time working cleric. That's quite a difference. I hope I shall remain up to the task laid before me in those seminal words of ordination from the old 1662 Book of Common Prayer spoken over me by Glyn Simon as he laids his hands on my head.

"Receive the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a priest in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of his holy Sacraments. In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

I've been a liturgical reformer all my working life, one way or another, and don't disapprove at all of the texts of the revised modern language ordinal, but I'm glad I was ordained in the time I was, with this solemn pronouncement made over me, words used across the English speaking world ever since the reformation breathed new vernacular life into the ancient Latin formulas. This says it all for me. 

It's what I have striven to be in response to God's call imparted in the uncertain years of my youth when Vietnam, the Cold War and the threat of nuclear holocaust overshadowed the world,  when the Beatles were supposed to be more popular than Jesus, when a man first walked on the moon, when church attendance slumped, and with it vocations to the ministry. It's been a bit like rowing upstream for much of the time, though never without blessings, and the surprises of grace.